October 2007

Did you ever have the nasty runny shits that make you race to the toilet and almost before you get properly seated and a smoke lit it comes spewing out of your anal sphincter to splash the toilet water so violently as to get your entire backside wet?

Me either, just wondering.

From yesterday’s Downsizer Dispatch:

So many bills in so little time. Last week, the
Senate passed  14 bills amounting to 1482 pages. The House passed 15 bills
totaling 50 pages. How does this happen?

Each member of Congress sits on a few committees, (where they are often
susceptible to lobbyist influence.) Even if they develop some expertise in a
few areas, they haven’t read, and know very little about, most of the bills
their party leaders ask them to pass. Many of these bills delegate more money
and authority to the President and administrative agencies. The process has its
own inertia, and government grows and grows. It doesn’t matter what the people
want, and the long-term consequences for the nation are rarely considered. This
is why we need the Read
the Bills Act.

But can we pass the Read the Bills Act?

We believe so, because it is clear the tide is turning in our country. The
political culture is changing. Signs of popular discontent are rising all
around us. Polls show record-low approval ratings for Congress, and near-record
lows for the President.  A supposedly “fringe” Presidential
candidate, Ron Paul, dominates the Internet and shocked the Establishment by
raising $5.1 million over the past three months. His message of downsizing the
federal government is resonating with more and more people. Agree or disagree
with Paul, his success is a stinging rebuke to the status quo.

It is clear that people want change, and we can achieve it.

Although we were taught in school that we have a Constitutional system of
checks and balances between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches,
the only check that matters is the people. History shows that direct action
from the people does work. Direct action does lead to change. Popular
resistance can undo any government program. For instance, popular resistance
brought Prohibition to an end. The draft was ended during the Nixon
Administration because of popular backlash, and hasn’t returned for fear of the
same.

But we are not  even asking for popular resistance. Instead, we are asking
for popular persistence. Contact Congress. Tell Congress what must be
done. Ask your friends to do the same, and to tell their friends. And then, do
it all over again. And again. As the pressure mounts, Congress can not afford
to ignore us. Indeed, they will begin to fear us. And so we ask you to tell your Representative and
Senators to introduce and pass the Read the Bills Act.

We also ask you to spread the word. Click the “Tell a Friend” button
on the campaign page.

And add your blog or website to the Read the Bills Act Coalition. Details are
found here.

This week, we welcome four new members to the Coalition:

mccoolportraits
Dooglio.net
The Pro’se Plaintiffs &
Litigants Association
NextRevolution

Finally, a list of the bills Congress passed last week is found at the bottom
of the
blog version of this Dispatch.

We invite you to visit our blog regularly and post your comments. Check it out here.

That’s pretty much as plain as I can put it. I suppose it could have been worse. I knew it was going to be an extremely long day and since all of my managers are in place the next three days I came in a bit late. I had to run to Carrollton to buy a toner for one of the printers and stopped to see a friend of mine at my old store. It was her last day there. It will be sad to see her go but she’s got a great job working for the Red Cross and I am happy for her.

It was meeting day so I spent most of the day gathering paperwork and putting it together and then sat at the meeting until around five this evening. Pretty uneventful actually. One of my cooks didn’t show up tonight, so I had to find someone else. There goes overtime $ down the drain, the asshat.

Some more video on the shooting yesterday in Cleveland.

According to Police, two guns, three knives and a duffle bag stuffed with ammunition was found near the body of the teen who shot four people at the Cleveland school. Police have identified the shooter as fourteen-year-old Asa Coon. Coon shot and killed himself as the law officers arrived at the scene. Luckily he must have been a pretty crappy shot because the only fatality was himself.

What an asshat.